From St. Louis, Missouri

If you could stand a bit of fun escapism right about now, here’s Steven Soderbergh to the rescue!

Logan Lucky is like his films Ocean’s Eleven (and Twelve and Thirteen), but different. Danny Ocean’s caper crews were slick and smart. The Logan brothers and their co-conspirators are West Virginia rednecks who do not appear to be all that bright.

The Logans are definitely not lucky. Jimmy (Channing Tatum) suffered a football injury back in the day and his resulting limp gets him fired from a construction job at Charlotte Motor Speedway. (“Liability” issues he’s told.) His brother Clyde (Adam Driver) lost half his left arm in Mideast fighting and tends bar.

Together they devise a scheme to steal a huge amount of money from the NASCAR track during the Memorial Day weekend race.

The caper is crafty, but the characters and cast members who populate those roles are the real charm here. Like Max Chilblain (Sean MacFarlane), a wealthy, obnoxious, egomaniacal NASCAR sponsor. Prison warden Burns (Dwight Yoakam) is the type of administrator who doesn’t like to acknowledge problems. There’s Jimmy’s ex (Katie Holmes) who has remarried rich and shares custody of their daughter. Also in the cast are Hillary Swank, Katherine Waterston and Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough.

But the big casting story is Daniel Craig with bleached hair as explosives expert Joe Bang. When recruited for the job, he points out to the Logans that he is “in-car-cer-ated.” But the Logans have a workaround for that small problem. The usually taciturn Craig appears to enjoy letting loose in the role.

Logan Lucky is full of fun and funny surprises, which I won’t ruin here. As with his Ocean’s flicks, director Soderbergh keeps the action moving fast which lets certain less plausible plot elements zip quickly by. The end result is a satisfying two-hour break from real life, something many of us are in great need of.